Grad-Invited Seminar Nominations for 2010-2011

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EEB Graduate Student Association

To nominate a speaker for the 2010-2011 Grad-Invited Seminar, create a section heading with that person's name and institution, along with links to their personal webpage, a blurb about their research, etc. See the page from last year for examples. Deadline for nominations will be December 11. Voting will follow, and the decision should be made shortly thereafter.


Alan Lemmon, Florida State University

Alan Lemmon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Scientific Computing. He is most interested in evolutionary biology and takes an interdisciplanry approach in his research by incorporating phylogenetics, phylogeography, speciation, population genetics, and genomics. Dr. Lemmon's empirical research focuses on reptiles and amphibians and often collaborates with his wife, Emily Moriarty-Lemmon (also a FSU faculty member), to study amphibian speciation. In addition to his research he has created EvoTutor, educational software to help teach concepts of evolution.

Research highlights include the creation of PhyloMapper, a computer program that uses maximum likelihood to test hypotheses of phylogeographic history. At the moment, he is in the process of incorporating niche models to create PhyloMapper2. Dr. Lemmon's website says the following about PhyloMapper1: "PhyloMapper implements a likelihood-based statistical framework for estimating historical patterns of gene flow and ancestral geographic locations. This method uses a phylogeny with branch lengths and the geographic localities of all individuals represented by the tips of the phylogeny. Using a spatially-explicit model of migration related to the diffusion model, I have derived an equation describing the likelihood of observing the haplotypes sampled at their current geographic locations, given the locations of their ancestors and the dispersal distance of the species. Using a maximum likelihood approach, Emily Moriarty Lemmon and I have recently applied this new framework to a 246-taxon phylogeny of chorus frogs (Pseudacris; Lemmon et al. 2007) and tested hypotheses regarding phylogeographic structure, routes of expansion, and glacial refugia (Lemmon and Lemmon, 2008). This framework, which represents an important advance in the field of phylogeography, has been implemented in the Java software PhyloMapper1."

Dr. Lemmon also has published extensively on theoretical phylogenetics. Some research highlights include: studying the effects of missing data on phylogenetic reconstruction, exploring the effects of phylogenetic model misspecification, estimating Bayesian MCMC convergence, and identifying the causes and consequences of inaccurate Bayesian branch length estimates.

Selected Publications
Brown, J. M., S. M. Hedtke, A. R. Lemmon, and E. M. Lemmon. In review. When Trees Grow Too Long: Investigating the Causes of Highly Inaccurate Bayesian Branch Length Estimates. Systematic Biology.

Lemmon, A. R., J. M. Brown, K. Stanger-Hall, and E. M. Lemmon. 2009. The Effect of Missing Data on Phylogenetic Estimates Obtained by Maximum-Likelihood and Bayesian Inference. Systematic Biology 58:130-145.

Brown, J. M. and A. R. Lemmon. 2007. The Importance of Data Partitioning and the Utility of Bayes Factors in Bayesian Phylogenetics. Systematic Biology 56:643-655.

Lemmon, A. R. and E. M. Lemmon. 2008. A Likelihood Framework for Estimating Phylogeographic History on a Continuous Landscape. Systematic Biology 57:544-561.

A. R. Lemmon. 2007. Analytical, Computational, and Statistical Approaches to Studying Speciation. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Texas at Austin.

A. R. Lemmon and M. Kirkpatrick. 2006. Reinforcement and the Genetics of Hybrid Incompatibilities. Genetics 173:1145-1155.